In today's world, the use of mobile devices (e.g., cellular phones, personal digital assistants, handheld PCs, etc.) has become a standard form of maintaining communication with others as well as a means to store data important to the user. The information stored on such devices can relate to personal or business data such as social security numbers, phone numbers, addresses, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, etc. Due to technological advances in memory storage capabilities proportional to memory size, a mobile device is capable of storing large amounts of information.
Thus, the information contained in an individual's mobile device can be extremely user specific and as a result contain highly sensitive information related to the device owner. As a consequence, an unscrupulous user who finds a lost or misplaced mobile device can misuse the information stored therein. For example, a mobile device can contain information that is user-specific but not readily usable unless such data can be correlated with other information. Such data can be tied to the original user providing an easy means for the unscrupulous user to commit identity theft, which can result in loss of money, ability to obtain credit and other damaging affects to a device owner. Such a misuse of information can be a major inconvenience to the device owner and thus is undesirable.
By the nature of their design, mobile devices have several properties making them more vulnerable to loss. They are compact and can be carried everywhere by the user to provide instant access to the information contained within the device. Since the information in the devices can be highly sensitive, there exists a danger that someone who acquires the lost device will have access to all the information contained within. In the hands of an unscrupulous user, this information can be misused to facilitate identity theft. Such a misrepresentation can allow the unscrupulous user to obtain credit cards and other resources and to employ such resources to the detriment of the mobile device owner.
Additionally, user specific information can be contained on the device to allow personal data to be correlated to other stored information such as social security numbers, bank account numbers, addresses and the like. Correlating such data can help an unscrupulous user create a fictional identity as though they are the original user. In view of the technology available today, financial transactions do not require a high level of security between a debtor and creditor. In fact, little more than a person's name, billing address and social security number is required to correlate to a credit card number in order to purchase goods in today's technology rich commerce. Thus, by simply accessing some personal data related to the device owner, the unscrupulous user can assume the device owner's identity and inflict financial hardship or other deleterious consequences to the device owner's personal life.
One conventional method currently employed to provide a security means is to password protect access to the mobile device. Such a measure requires the password protection to be invoked to prevent access to any of the device's functionality. In order to gain such access, a password must be entered to allow the user to utilize the device's functionality. However, such protection can be insufficient for a number of reasons such as forgetting to invoke the protection, simply entering an easily decipherable password (e.g., 123) to overcome the protection or simply not invoking such protection because it creates an inconvenience for the user.
As noted above, the mobile device provides a convenient means to allow a device owner to structure their life. However, such a device will most likely be small to provide convenient mobility and thus, easily lost or forgotten. Since the mobile device is subject to a high degree of being lost or misplaced, and such a device may contain highly sensitive information, there exists a need to have a method or system to protect such information from access by an unscrupulous user. In addition, it is desirable to have such a protection mechanism be easily invoked to provide a fast and convenient means to protect sensitive data.